16. Danielle #2
I don’t. God help me, I don’t. I clutch the edge of the counter hard enough to hurt and rock onto his fingers while he thumbs my clit with devastating, patient precision.
His other hand works his belt open with a metallic clink, then his zipper.
I hear the rasp of it in the empty dining room.
When I look down between our bodies, his cock is free - hard, flushed, the head already glistening - and the sight punches the air out of my lungs like a forgotten punchline.
“See what you do?” He guides my hand to wrap around him.
He’s scorching, heavy, jumping in my grip like even this almost-contact is too much.
“Every night in that corner booth. Every polite smile over the specials board. I walked out of here aching and took myself in hand in the car thinking about this exact counter and your mouth and the way you used to say my name when I was buried in you.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“That’s devoted. There’s a difference - I’ve had months to catalog it.
” He thrusts into my fist once, twice, while his fingers keep fucking me in a matching filthy rhythm.
Wet sounds fill the quiet between us. “Say you didn’t touch yourself thinking about me.
Say it clean and I’ll believe you and walk out right now. ”
I can’t say it. We both hear the silence where the lie should go.
He kisses his way down the V of my service blouse, impatient with buttons, and when one pops free he makes a sound of victory that would be funny if I weren’t burning.
His mouth closes over my breast through the thin cup of my bra, damp heat and pressure, and I arch into him with a curse that echoes off the tile.
He peels the cup down. Cool air, then his tongue, then the scrape of teeth that makes my fist tighten around his cock until he groans against my skin.
“Sensitive,” he mutters, pleased. “You always were after a long service. Adrenaline and exhaustion and then this - my mouth, your noise. I used to live for closing shift if it meant I got you like this after.”
“That was before.”
“Before I ruined us. I know.” He lifts his head, eyes dark. “I’m not asking you to forget before. I’m asking you to feel now.”
His fingers resume their devastating work between my legs - two inside, thumb circling - while I stroke him in short, mean pulls that make his hips jerk.
We are a mess of half-undone clothes and wet sounds and breath.
The edge rushes up on me faster than I want; I feel climax coiling and have to grab his wrist to slow him before I tip over into something I can’t take back.
“Not - not like this,” I pant. “If you make me come I’ll let you do the rest. And I can’t. Not tonight.”
He freezes instantly, fingers still buried, cock still leaping in my fist. The obedience in that stillness almost undoes me more than the touching.
“All right,” he says, voice shaking. “All right. I hear you. Just - don’t send me away yet. Let me stay in the almost.”
He leans in until his forehead presses mine, breath shared, the slide of my hand on his cock and the curl of his fingers inside me the only percussion left in the room.
The blunt head of him bumps my inner thigh - hot, dangerous, slick where he’s leaking - and then he notches himself against me, rubbing through my folds without pushing in, coating himself in how ready I am.
“Dani.” His voice scrapes raw. “Let me inside. Please. I’ll be careful. I’ll be quick. I’ll be on my knees after. Just - let me feel you around my cock before I lose my goddamn mind in your restaurant.”
The plea lands like a match in dry grass.
For one stupid, starving second I almost tip my hips and take him.
The head of him slides, catches at my entrance, presses - not in, not yet, just the unbearable almost. My body clenches on emptiness and want.
His fingers withdraw to make room. All it would take is one inch, one choice, one surrender-
And then something cold and clear cuts through the heat: morning. Shame. The long confused weeks that would follow an hour of feeling good. Trust still in pieces on the floor between us.
I press my palms flat against his chest and shove, not cruel, just absolute.
We break apart by inches that feel like miles.
His cock bobs between us, shining with my wetness.
My skirt is rucked to my waist. His shirt hangs open, belt dangling.
We look like a crime scene that stopped mid-act on purpose.
We’re both breathing like sprinters. Staring across the wreckage of almost.
“Dani?”
“I can’t.” My voice is shaky. I hate that it’s shaky. “This doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious. If we do this, I’m going to hate myself in the morning. I’m going to hate you. Because wanting you was never the problem, Niccolo. I never stopped wanting you. I stopped trusting you.”
He closes his eyes like I’ve hit him.
“And this-” I gesture between us, at the charged air and the rumpled clothes and everything we almost did. “This doesn’t rebuild trust. This just makes me feel good for an hour and confused for weeks.”
“Fair enough.” He steps back, giving me more space than I asked for. His hands are trembling slightly as he tucks his shirt back in. “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I kissed you back.”
“Still.”
We stand there in the aftermath, the distance between us feeling wider than it did before, somehow. Like the wall I’ve been maintaining has been revealed for what it really was - not stone, but paper. So easy to tear through the moment either of us stopped pretending.
“I should go,” he says.
“Yeah.”
He moves toward the door, then stops, turning back. “Dani?”
“What?”
“This changes things. Even if it doesn’t change everything. It means something that you still-” He breaks off, shakes his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Niccolo.”
He pauses, hand on the door.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you. What just happened… I need you to understand that wanting someone and forgiving them aren’t the same thing.”
“I know.” His voice is soft. “I understand.”
He leaves. I stand in my empty restaurant, touching my lips where I can still feel the ghost of his mouth, and I’m shaking. Not from cold or fear or anger, but from the realization of how fast that wall came down.
Five months of careful distance, and all it took was his hand on my face and I crumbled like I’d been waiting for permission.
I hate that. I hate how weak I feel, how vulnerable, how human.
But underneath the hate, something else is stirring.
Something that might be hope.